are Ruby's logical operators methods, like binary operators are?

Question

I was wondering, are && , and , || , or base core unchangeable functionalities (like in other languages eg: php) or are they object methods like & <=> but defined some magical way

More details on my trait of thoughts:

[] & [10]
# => []

[].&([10])
# => []

"aaa".& 10
# NoMethodError: undefined method `&' for "aaa":String

note it say undefined method

...of course you can do.

true.& false
# => false

...but you cannot do:

true.&& false
# SyntaxError:

so If it's possibility to do

class String
  # monkey patch. If you googled this don't use this in real world, use ruby mixins insted
  def &(right_side)
    # do something meaningfull
    right_side
  end
end

"aaa".& 10
# => 10     # ta-da!

is there (with some magic) possible to do:

class String
  # monkey patch. If you googled this don't use this in real world, use ruby mixins insted
  def &&(right side)
    # do something meaningfull
    right side
  end
end
# => SyntaxError: (irb):13: syntax error, unexpected keyword_end

thx

Answer 1

These are the operators that cannot be (re)defined:

• &&, || (AND, OR)
• .., ... (range)
• ?: (ternary)
• rescue
• = (and **=, &&=, &=, *=, +=. -=, <<=, >>= , ||=, |=, ^=)
• defined?
• not
• and, or
• if, unless, while, until

The others, like (incomplete list) !, ~, +, -, **, *, /, %, >>, ==, != are implemented as methods and can be redefined.

Answer 2

David A. Black stated in his book:

[T]he conditional assignment operator ||= , as well as its rarely spotted cousin &&=, both of which provide the same kind of shortcut as the pseudooperator methods but are based on operators, namely || and && , which you can't override.

Now to get into the reason please Look and read Why can't we override || and && ? and Operator Overloading .